Isaiah 59:7

Their feet run. The words “run” and “make haste” depict the eagerness and intensity with which these men engage in evil. Their conscience is not asleep; it is dead. Having completed one act of iniquity, they are impatient to engage in another. Compare Prov. 1:16; 6:17, 18; Micah 7:3.

Shed innocent blood. Manasseh “shed innocent blood very much” (2 Kings 21:16). God decreed that “whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” (Gen. 9:6). When Judah faced its doom, its leaders were given over to “covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence” (Jer. 22:17). One of the conditions upon which God promised to avert the doom of Jerusalem was that the people “oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood” (Jer. 7:6).

Thoughts of iniquity. In the days of Noah, God saw that “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Similarly, the schemes of evil men today bode ill for our generation (see on Matt. 24:37, 38).

Wasting and destruction. Dead Sea scroll 1QIs adds “and violence.” Evil thoughts beget evil deeds. Attempts to thwart evil when it reaches the stage of action are largely futile. The only effective way to prevent evil deeds is to transform the thoughts. It is this aspect of the law that Christ sets forth in the Sermon on the Mount (see on Matt. 5:17—22).

Their paths. That is, “their highways.” Travel was no longer safe.